A wide variety of documents contain multiple pages of information of interest to users. For example, hypertext markup language (html) documents residing on a server in the Internet or other online service contain content that can be viewed using a browser. Documents created using spreadsheets, word processing programs or other software can also contain information or other multimedia content of interest to a user.
Documents are typically displayed in windows. Each window typically contains a status bar at its lower edge, a vertical scroll bar at its right edge, and may have a horizontal scroll bar near the status bar. For a multiple page document, only a portion of the document is displayed by the window at a given instant. The vertical and horizontal scroll bars indicate that part of the document is not currently displayed and allow a user to scroll vertically and horizontally, respectively, through the document to view all of the information contained in the document.
Although scroll bars are useful, a user may ignore the scroll bar or may forget about the scroll bar because the scroll bar is an insignificant portion of the window. This is particularly true of an inexperienced user of a computer system. As a result, a user may fail to scroll through portions of a document which may be of interest.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for drawing a user's attention to the fact that the document contains additional information that can be scrolled through. The present invention addresses such a need. The present invention also includes a method and system for customizing scrolling or making scrolling more convenient. For example, the present invention includes mechanisms for accounting for left-handed users or users having a small display.